Hamlet: My Vision

Imagine that you will direct Hamlet. Explain your vision and how it will be staged. Include specific details about the type of stage, tech elements, and overall concept for the show. 500 words. Due by midnight.

One of the difficulties in performing a work of Shakespeare’s is that, due to its age and language, modern audiences can have difficulty relating to it. With Hamlet in particular the barrier to entry is even higher since most of the plot revolves around the politics of a monarchy with an inactive, moody protagonist. If I were to direct a production of Hamlet, I would want to put a spin on it that eliminated as many of the walls between the source material and the audience as possible. One way I came up with to do that was to reimagine the story as being set in a modern college. Ophelia’s father Polonius would be a professor but all of the other major characters would be students. Claudius and Gertrude would be Hamlet’s close friends instead of elder family members, and instead of Hamlet’s father getting killed by Claudius, it would be Hamlet’s twin brother who committed suicide after being relentlessly bullied by Claudius. Gertrude was dating Hamlet’s twin but after his death started dating Claudius. The relationship between Claudius and Polonius would be that of a student sucking up to their teacher, who thinks the kid can do no wrong. Laertes would still be Ophelia’s brother, she and Hamlet would have had some form of past relationship, and she would still commit suicide during the events of the play. Horatio would still be Hamlet’s close friend and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern would be Hamlet’s former friends who go to a nearby school. 

The kind of stage I would want to have for this is a thrust stage, as it allows the audience to see the action from three out of four sides. It also opens your options for blocking and choreography. Normally you want your actors to be facing the audience as much as possible so that they can read the actors’ faces, but if you have the audience on three sides, then the actors can face those sides without having their backs to everyone. The main locations would be Hamlet’s dorm room, the auditorium where the play is performed, Polonius’ classroom, and the outside campus. Lighting, sound, and effects could work together to create a dreary, rainy atmosphere.

With the technicals, I want to make this story feel real and grounded. If the audience can relate to this version of the play, then perhaps they will get something out of it that they wouldn’t just reading or watching the original. Because of that, the costumes should be accurate to what young adults in modern times (jeans/sweatpants/shorts/skirts, shirts/t-shirts). In particular, Hamlet should be wearing dark, less formal clothes, since in his negative mental state he probably wouldn’t care about keeping up appearances. In contrast, Claudius and Gertrude might dress up more to show off their status. Ophelia should wear floral patterns with a focus on the color blue, since her character is symbolically tied to flowers and water.

Hamlet (Kenneth Branagh & Ethan Hawke): Directors' Visions

Kenneth Branagh version
I think the director’s vision for this version of Hamlet was to recreate the entire story in a style reminiscent of a fairy tale. Some of the aspects that I see as adding to this vision are the generally bright color pallet, particularly inside the castle, the clearly magical nature of the ghost, and the general sense of grandiose. This is particularly noticable in comparison to something like the Mel Brooks version, which is set in medieval times and has an overall dark, despressing tone. In Kenneth Branagh’s version, all of the dark symbolism is centered around the protagonsit, Hamlet, creating a stark construct between him and the many people who, he feels isolated from after this great tragedy he’s undergone.
Almost all of the story in this version is just directly recreating the original play; however, the few changes that were made seem to point towards the idea that this is meant to be a fairy tale. A prime example of this is when Polonius is reading the letter Hamlet wrote to Ophelia and we, the audience, see a brief flashback to Hamlet and Ophelia happily in bed together. This directly implies to the audience that Hamlet and Ophelia did once have a romantic relationship, like something out of a fairy tale. The original play does not have any flashbacks of this manner, and so the previous state of the relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia is left more vague, contributing to the greater complexity of the story as a whole. Of course fairy tales can be complex, and this production is far from simple. However, by deciding to answer one of the questions the source material provides, the Kenneth Branagh version of Hamlet is trying to say something about the nature of their relationship rather than leaving it up to the audience’s interpretation, and fairy tales are known for teaching lessons.


Ethan Hawke version
The Ethan Hawke version of Hamlet from 2000 is a wildly different adaptation that brings the story of Hamlet into what was then modern times. The vision of the director was not just to place this story in what would be a more familiar setting for its audience, but also to use what the modern setting provided him to advance the story. This version makes extensive use of the mediums of photography and film to tell the story in a new way and give the film as a whole a whole unique flavor. Ophelia, for example, is a photographer in this adaptation who takes and gives out pictures of flowers rather than actual flowers. The ghost of Hamlet’s father, though he later shows up as an actual spector, makes his first appearance on a tv. Instead of putting on a play to try and determine whether or not Claudius is guilty of murder, Hamlet instead puts together a short film with the same premise, using clips from old movies.
This last point in particular actually serves as a methaphor for the adaptiation itself as well - it takes the story of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and remixes it, updating and rearranging the story. There are scenes that are cut or moved around, making it not a full adaption like the Kenneth Branagh movie. For example, early in the film we see a looped clip of Hamlet on multiple screens pointing a gun at his head, with the voiceover saying the famous line, “To be or not to be”. However, the full scene this line is from does not occur until later into the film, when Hamlet is in a dvd store. Ophelia’s suicide is also foreshadowed when, during a conversation between Claudius, Gertrude, and Polonius at an indoor pool, Ophelia hallucinates throwing herself in.